Posts from Farmers' Market Report

A glance in just about any direction at the Hollywood farmers' market reveals some colorful variety of capsicum, from the fiery red lantern chile to the sweet brown chocolate bell pepper. Click through to see the full spectrum, and let us know how you're enjoying peppers this season. Are you roasting, storing, making hot sauce or schug?

While the tomato blight may be wiping out certain conventional breeds, heirlooms seem to be flourishing. We saw big, small, round, heart-shaped, knobby, red, yellow, green, orange, and purple tomatoes at the Union Square market today. They were everywhere.

This week, we were thrilled to visit a new farmers' market in our neighborhood. Located below an olive grove and Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park, the market has about 20 produce vendors and we found a beautiful selection of summer fruits, vegetables, and other goodies – peaches, figs, corn, tomatoes, honey ... What are you seeing at your farmers' market in early August?

City: New York City, Manhattan
Population: 1.6 million
Local specialties: Bagels, bread, smoked fish, cheese, and local produce

Most people come to New York City to eat... in restaurants. And man, there are a lot of great restaurants. But the city is a wonderful place to cook, too, even if you are fighting a postage stamp-sized kitchen and the absence of a car to haul home your groceries. The millions of food lovers (visitors and natives) running around in New York, plus the traditions brought over from many immigrant populations, means, quite simply, that this city is full of flavor. There are butchers and bagel stores that take you back in time and farmers' market vendors that make a huge city feel like a small town. It's a lot to digest (so much, in fact, that we're saving Brooklyn for a separate guide). We're passing on our favorites—places we visit and can recommend firsthand—but we know New Yorkers are an opinionated bunch, so give us your picks.

Who knew that eggplants came in so many shapes and colors? We're sure some of you did, but it's a whole new world to us, as we've only recently joined the eggplant lovers club – and just in time for the start of eggplant season at our farmers' market!

We like to shop around at farmers markets for good deals on summer berries, cucumbers, and other fruit for summer cooking and preserving. But did you know you can get even better deals if you go straight to the source? In fact, many farms and farm stands offer bulk quantities of fruit for customers willing to buy 10 pounds of blackberries, 12 pints of strawberries, a batch of dill pickles' worth of cucumbers. This is how we discovered our latest prize: 10 pounds of tart, juicy cherries.

In honor of Escapes Month, I made a quick — or so I thought — escape Wednesday afternoon to a goat farm on the North Fork of Long Island, which led to an all-day meander to farm stands, a winery and a picnic in a lavender field. I know: how lucky am I?

My mother-in-law wanted to see some goats, so we took a little drive to Catapano Dairy, a small — if you think having 86 goats in your backyard is small — dairy farm in Peconic, New York.

As temperatures climbed into the hundreds yesterday, we escaped to the breezy shores of Malibu. Inching our way up Pacific Coast Highway (apparently everyone else in LA had the same idea), we were lured by a sign for figs, pulled over, and wound up discovering the Vital Zuman Sustainable Farm and Biointensive Village.